If We Cared About Our Kids, We'd Have Better Schools

Income inequality – not intelligence – limits poor children

Photo by School My Kids on Unsplash

This weekend, I had the pleasure of watching my 10-year-old granddaughter perform in a school production of 101 Dalmatians. It was my first visit to my grandchildrens’ new school. (She was adorable, and Hollywood will no doubt be calling).

The difference between this school and their previous one was as stark as the two colors of Cruella de Vil’s hair, but not for the reasons you might think.

Their old school was just a couple of blocks from my daughter’s house, and I visited it many times. The dedicated teachers there did a fine job and dressed up the ancient, squat building with lots of colorful art. But you could tell at a glance that the school was not well-funded. So many of the children didn’t speak English that the school had to provide instruction in Spanish.

The new school is a charter school. Nestled within a forest preserve with beautiful buildings, mature trees, rolling lawns and gardens, it resembles a college campus. I researched the school’s history and its former name included the word’s “Country Day School,” if that tells you anything. That school closed about a decade ago and then the property was taken over by a charter school a few years later. 

And so my grandchildren are attending a school that looks and feels like the kind of hoity-toity private school my family would never be able to afford – but it’s a public school so it costs nothing.

I’m thankful my daughter’s family was able to take advantage of this opportunity, but I have just one question:

Why doesn’t every American child attend a public school this excellent? 

We value our kids, right? They’re our future. We want their education to prepare them for all the changes they’ll see in their lifetimes. 

Instructional quality and old schools

Let’s be clear. From my vantage point, the teachers at the old school were plenty dedicated and caring. The problem is not that the old school had inferior teachers or a poor curriculum. Not at all. So does it really matter if the surroundings are so starkly different? 

I learned to read and write very well in a ramshackle school that they’d never allow children in today. I’d like to say it doesn’t matter whether the children are in a shabby classroom last remodeled in 1950 or in a brand-new state-of-the-art smart classroom.  

But perhaps it does. Maybe the environment passes on an unspoken message to the kids: Look how much we care about your education. We put a lot of time and effort into this school because we want you to succeed. 

Conversely, some schools offer a different message: We provided this crappy old building for you. Succeed or don’t succeed. We don’t care. Our own kids don’t go here.

Sorting kids

I live near a private Catholic school. It’s an old red brick building that’s far from posh, but I know plenty of non-Catholics who send their kids there. They are so convinced that private schools are better than public schools that they’re willing to pay a pile of money and subject their children to indoctrination into a religion they don’t practice just to keep their kids out of public school.

Private schools, of course, are filled with children whose parents have enough resources to pay private tuition. This automatically sorts out poor children. Rich people are not better than poor people, but having money to throw at problems solves many of them.  

Charter schools are free and tax-supported, but they require extra effort to get your children into them. My daughter needed a year to manage it. Do all families have the time, energy and knowledge it takes to secure enrollment to a charter school? Of course not, and those who don’t will end up enrolling their kids in the default public school. 

Whether you’re sorting kids by money, parental perseverance or by some other method, you are sorting. It’s far from clear whether a given school actually provides a better education or simply has creamed off the best students with the most dedicated families.

Family of origin matters

When you look at the educational achievement of a child, the financial stability of the child’s family of origin is a pretty darned good predictor of how far the child will go. Financially comfortable families enjoy many advantages that financially struggling families don’t, and those kinds of things will eventually show up in the test scores.

A wealthy family can afford better food and medical care, nicer surroundings, safer neighborhoods, household help, private tutoring if needed, educational vacations … contrast that with a family that might be crammed into a tiny apartment in a loud and dangerous neighborhood in the middle of a food desert with little access to health care.

It should be obvious that such things contribute to scholastic success, and that the contacts and resources of wealthy families help launch their children into good careers. It’s not necessarily that the wealthy kids were smarter or more dedicated or that they went to better schools.

As a famous Washington Post story says, Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong.

But people tend not to understand that. We’re bombarded with the message that here in the land of opportunity, a smart and dedicated poor kid has the same chance to succeed as a rich kid. It’s poppycock.

Our system is built upon the (laughable) notion that every citizen has equal opportunities to succeed. We all know that’s untrue, and we all know that the socioeconomic group of your family of origin has quite a lot to do with your adult financial wellbeing. 

The unspoken assumption among those who drive policy goes something like this: Rich people are smart, and smart parents produce smart children. Why should we spend a lot of money on schools for poor kids? It’s like stuffing money down a rathole. Educate them as cheaply as possible, but don’t expect much. 

This destructive belief is harming our kids and harming our country. We have to care about our underclass because we need the talents of everyone. We don’t really need uneducated laborers anymore. We need a country of highly educated people who know how to think. 

Why are we throwing away the potential of half of our children? I can answer that: It’s because we don’t think these kids actually have potential. I promise you, they do. We just don’t bother to nurture it.

Can charter schools help?

Are charter schools better than public schools? The Economist says yes. Truthout says no. U.S. News and & World Report says it’s mixed. There’s reason to think charter schools end up drawing public resources away from the poorest schools, and while that might benefit the kids lucky enough to get into a charter school, that’s not doing society as a whole any good.

If we want every child to do well, an attractive school with dedicated, well-paid teachers and an excellent curriculum is vital, but it’s not enough. We’re still sorting. We’re still leaving some kids out.

This is where the income inequality comes in

We have to combat income inequality by making sure that poor kids really do enjoy the same advantages wealthier kids get. That means access to decent housing, healthy food, universal healthcare and affordable higher education/job training. 

These don’t have to be handouts. Workers can secure many of these things for themselves if we start fairly compensating them. We have plenty of wealth in this country; we just keep it all in the hands of the few. Stronger unions and much higher marginal tax rates would help working class families provide for their children. (If you don’t know what a marginal tax rate is, please read this.)

Imagine an America full of highly educated, thoughtful citizens. Imagine what advancements in medicine and tech we’d achieve and what art we’d create. Talent and innate intelligence are not concentrated in the top 1 percent of the population, but wealth sure is. Fix income inequality and you fix a lot of other things – including education.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is The Trailer Park Rules. Tips accepted here.